Read Online Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy - Free Book Online

have to stay home.”
    Jennifer was happy. On those days she had her mum all to herself. She’d help her to sort out her clothes and tidy up her make-up. She’d flick through the picture portfolio, sorting out the glossy prints. She played in the bathroom while her mum lay soaking in bubbles. Sometimes her mum let Jennifer put Macy in the water and wash her hair. Later, they’d watch television together, her mum smelling of shampoo and cream, her hair still wet, hanging in thin strips around her face.
    After a while the work dried up. There were other girls who were more unusual-looking or had better hair or looked more mysterious. It was nothing personal. Just business. The photographers stopped calling and the agencies just asked her to leave a message. We’ll get back to you , they said, but they never did. Her mum searched everywhere for jobs, showing her photographs to agencies. She left Jennifer with Simone or her gran; a couple of times she left her with neighbours. It was a bad time.
    Early one morning, when it was still dark outside, she took Jennifer to Simone’s. Simone was in a giant pink dressing gown and her hair was sticking up. Her mum stood in the hallway getting ready to leave. She was full of sparkle beside Simone, in skintight jeans and fitted leather jacket, her hair parted at the side and pulled back into a severe bunch at the back of her head, her lips looking pink and wet. She had a glittery scarf wrapped round and round her neck and Simone, in between a couple of yawns, remarked on it.
    “I bought it in Bond Street,” her mum said. “Must go. . .”
    But as she turned to go, Simone put her arm out and held her there for a moment. Simone’s arm, plump, and red, her fingers short and stumpy, holding on to the leather jacket.
    “Go inside, Jen,” her mum said.
    Jennifer backed around the door but she could still hear them talking.
    “I will pay you.” Her mum’s voice was whispery. “I’m getting some back pay this week! All right?”
    Later that week Jennifer was surprised to see Simone, at the school gate, waiting with the other mums, wearing the glittery scarf that had come from Bond Street. It sat awkwardly round her chubby neck and didn’t go with her grubby jacket. It probably still had her mum’s perfume on it.
    There were a lot of headaches then. Her mum spent a lot of time in her bedroom with the curtains drawn.
    Alice heard the sound of the flat door closing. Then a moment later she heard Rosie’s footsteps padding along the hallway to her room. She placed the photograph under her pillow. Rosie gave a light knock and then walked in. It had always been like that. Rosie, knowing she could come into Alice’s room whenever she wanted. Alice didn’t mind. She had had enough locked doors in her life.
    “You all right, Alice? You looked a bit peaky when you came in.” Rosie sat on the edge of the bed and Alice felt the mattress sink down.
    “No, I’m fine. It’s just. . . Well, I’m not that keen on. . .”
    Alice pointed downwards, meaning Sara.
    “She’s all right. Her school is having a theatre trip and she wondered if I wanted to go. I said fine. It’s free, after all. Do you want anything? Tea? Coffee?”
    Alice shook her head, “I just thought I’d have a lie down.”
    Rosie nodded and backed out of the room, making exaggerated tiptoe movements, giving Alice a little wave at the door, as if she was going out for a long time, not just moving into another room.
    Alice pulled the photograph out from under the pillow. She realized then that she’d never shown any of her mum’s pictures to Rosie. What would she think? she wondered. Would she think that Alice looked like her mum? Alice shook her head. Apart from the fact that they were both thin there was almost no resemblance. She was small and plain. Her mum was tall and glamorous.
    She was gripped by a sudden feeling of sadness. Where was her mum now? At that very moment? Was she lying on a bed thinking of Jennifer,